Monday, 10 August 2009

Connect with me

I read an article today, whilst at work so unfortunately I don't have the link available and I can't remember which site it was on, that people tend to feel a lot more comfortable discussing their personal affairs with online friends whom they may never have met, than with their real-life friends. They also tend to feel closer to these friends and know more about them due to status updates on sites like Facebook and Twitter which allows people to share many aspects of their daily lives, their habits and their likes and dislikes. Real-life friends who are not part of the social media community are now not being regarded in the same light as before because of the lack of 'interaction'.

I find this rather curious but it does make sense to some extent because it's very easy to feel involved with someone's life when they're continually updating their status and broadcasting to their 'friends' (and sometimes more than that) about how they feel, where they've been and what they're about to do. The ability to comment about these movements also helps to form a sort of connection between people. It was also said that people are being invited to many more places and they have a wider choice of what to do thanks to Facebook event pages and this is something that I can definitely identify with.

Previously you might hear about a gig or a party through an advert, a flyer or sometimes just word of mouth; it would interest you but it's also easy to forget about it. With Facebook events you're given a list of what's happening on that day, often giving you a choice of which event to attend.

I believe that social media has enhanced people's lives despite the security fears that it may also present, which, whilst being relevant and not to be taken lightly, can also be curbed if people were made aware about certain security features that ought to be enabled and followed.

Edit: I've been editing bits and pieces of my blog and if you want to connect with me you can do so via the side buttons through Facebook,Twitter, LinkedIn and/or Flickr.